Why?  Is the first question that springs to mind.  What exactly is the point?  Who first thought of stuffing dead things?  I was going to say something nasty about Catherine Zeta Jones, but I think I'll just leave that to Graham Norton.  The ancient Peruvians used to embalm their ancestors by various methods (steaming, roasting, boil-in-the-bag - well, you get the idea), in fact, many ancient civilisations studied mummification so were part of the way there, and the Egyptians were pretty keen on ripping out the internal organs once they were finished with and selling them to Rameses Hurst II for art.  Or was it stuffing the cavities with sawdust (Back to Catherine Zeta Jones again?).

Seriously though, why?  It's quite an odd profession to choose, "When I grow up, I want to stuff dead animals".  Who was the first person to do this? And who decided what flavour to use?  Pork and chestnut, sage and onion, cranberry, brie and apple? The choice must be immense.  No doubt you could branch out into other materials - those polystyrene beads perhaps, or lavender and wheat.  The Victorians were quite into this, not only did they have walls in stately homes lined with heads of deer, zebra or other creatures that were too slow to run away ("As this is a rare species I'm going to kill it and put its head on the wall)"  they also kept their dead pets and stuffed them, then put them into 'amusing' tableaux such as kittens, dressed as humans, having a picnic.  If they knew anything about animals then they'd know that once we're all asleep they get up to all sorts - clubbing, getting drunk, making films, driving cars and shopping for a new fur coat.   Is there a limit on the size of the thing you stuff?  Would a taxidermist ever say 'Oh no sorry, Mr.Smith, I can't stuff your pet amoeba - I can't find it, and as for you Mrs Jones, your  blue whale is too big for my workshop'.  Would they stuff humans? You could have hours of fun if they did - surprise birthday parties would never be the same again.  

Maybe you could fit remote controls into all the stuffed creatures, or attach other means of propulsion - your favourite dear departed dog could skateboard across the lounge, with a cat floating in the air above it, whiskers flying around propeller-like above its head, your pet hamster could be stuffed with mexican jumping beans, your fish-tank laden with oil-filled guppies, rising and falling with the temperature - probably a bit cheaper than one of those fancy thermometers from a gadget shop.  Or, you could help children come to terms with the demise of their pets better using taxidermy.  Each child at a party not only gets a goodie bag, but they also get a suffed hamster, budgie or goldfish - all in it's own little box for safekeeping, or attached to their party balloon.

What sort of got me onto this was the recent (and sad) demise of a horse at the local animal sanctuary.  We were trying to think how they could dispose of the corpse - some ideas that spang to mind were selling it's head to the mafia, stuffing it, fixing it to some rockers and having a life-size toy, ethical burgers, ethical ponyskin coat, turn it upside-down and use it for hoopla, selling it to the school nearby as a proper horse to vault over, or, my favourite - brand the name of the animal sanctuary onto it, fill it with helium and fly it like a hairy blimp from the roof.